The Collected Letters, Volume 19

Many thanks for your Contributions about Cromwell; which, as you find opportunity, I shall be glad if you will continue.1

Most of Cromwell's own Letters, indeed almost all of them, I have now got together; copied and annotated by myself.2 It so happens that these of the Gloucester Book (which otherwise is known to me, not worth much) are not of the number.3 This time therefore it is all right. But in future if you fall in with any Cromwell Letter or Speech, pray ask me first,
describing the thing by its exact address and date, Whether I have not got it already?— Your former Copy, the Letter about Preston Fight, I had possessed in my own handwriting,
for some time; and the Baines one you referred me to, I found, was a blunder on the part of Baines,4—a misdating (19th for 17th) of a Letter which also I had long ago copied. Such blunders abound in this matter; and Baines did not deserve a special execration, but is included in the general one.

By the bye, do you know Preston? I could like well to have some investigation of the grounds thereabouts by an intelligent
person. I could send him copies of all, or as good as all, the credible accounts of the Fight,—four of them by eyewitnesses,
actors in the business. If I knew the ground I could understand it tolerably well. But ‘Ribble Bridge’ is ‘two miles off’
Preston, and not at the very end of it as my memory indicates the position now. Then ‘Darwen Bridge’; and the ‘Hill’ on the
South side of Ribble; and the ‘ford of Ribble,’ not rideable at that hour by Duke Hamilton and Co, who therefore had to ‘swim’ it: all this remains very confused to me.5

There is no immediate hurry; but help here would not be unwelcome. Besides the details in the Chatham Book which I have of
yours,6 there is a Letter by Sir Marmaduke Langdale (in Rushworth, I think),7 there is the account of one Captn Hodgson (in a Book published by Sir Walter Scott,—“Civil War Memorials, Edinbg, 1826” or some such title),8 and lastly Sir James Turner, best of all, who carries us along all thro' the retreat, to Wigan, and even to Uttoxeter in
Staffordshire.9

1. Harland wrote, 19 Dec. 1844: “I am personally unknown to you, but am a friend & collaborateur of Thos. Ballantyne [see below], from whom I am glad to learn of your present work. Pray keep the ‘Lancashire Civil War Tracts’ 6 months, or till you have done with them. As it may facilitate yr. work a little, I inclose a copy of Cromwell's letter
from that volume, wh. (being written on one side only) you can cut up & paste or wafer on yr. MS. copy, when (or if) you want it.— You have doubtless seen or will see Thierry's Short Essay on Cromwell in his recently
pubd work. As that author dug for himself, there may be veins indicated, worth your working out. Excuse these suggestions. Amidst the mass of perversions called ‘history’ through wh you
must have to wade, what your hero said or wrote is nearly the only stuff that may be real & true. I may therefore refer you
to a book readily available in London,—‘Baines's History of Lancre’—vol. II, p. 45 for a letter of Cromwell (Aug 19, 1648) to the Lancre Comtee, sitting at Manchester.—” (Yale MSS). He added many other useful details and wrote again to TC, 3 Jan., to “inclose copies of 3 letters.” J. A. Augustin Thierry (1796–1856).

2. TC was far from having found all the letters he should have done at this stage, and even after publication, 27 Nov., was to find that many had been omitted. The second edn. (1847) was to add over ninety letters and one speech to the first, and the third edn. (1850) added another speech and at least another forty letters. Readers of TC's letters should, therefore, bear in mind that references
to Cromwell, Works in these notes are to the Centenary Edn. (1896), which appears to be indirectly based on the third edn.; and although it is a substantially different work from the one
TC pbd. in 1845, it has unfortunately been the one generally used by historiographers and writers about TC.

3. Bibliotheca Gloucestrensis: a Collection of Scarce and Curious Tracts relating to the County and City of Gloucester; Illustrative
of and Published during the Civil War, collected by John Washbourn, pt. 1 (Gloucester, 1825): 406, 412. TC pbd. some in his Supplement (1846); see Works 9:283–85.

4. For the battle of Preston, 17 Aug. 1648, see Cromwell, Works 6:333–54. Edward Baines (1774–1848; ODNB) came from Preston, owned the Leeds Mercury, and wrote a History of the County Palatine and Duchy of Lancashire, 4 vols. (1836) and other works.

5. James Hamilton (1606–49), 1st duke of Hamilton, led a Scottish army on behalf of Charles I into England, was defeated at Preston, tried and executed.

8. John Hodgson (d. 1684), parliamentary army officer. Original Memoirs, Written during the Great Civil War; being the Life of Sir Henry Slingsby, and Memoirs of Capt. Hodgson, ed. Walter Scott (Edinburgh, 1806); see TC to DL, 19 Sept. 1842, and Works 6:334n.

9. Sir James Turner (1615–86?), Memoirs of his Own Life and Times, 1632–70 (Edinburgh, 1829); see Works 6:344n.